Red door

Author: Lin Yutang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: Preface to the Book
The characters in this book are purely fictional, just like the characters in all novels, mostly drawn from real life, but they are composite figures. I firmly believe that no one will consider themselves the original version of a warlord, adventurer, rogue, or dandy in this book. If a lady fantasizes about knowing the famous lady or favorite concubine in the book, or even if she has had similar experiences, that's fine. However, the Xinjiang Incident was real. The famous scholars in the historical background appear by their real names, such as:
Zuo Zongtang, the great political figure who first led the families of the Han army to migrate to Xinjiang;
Yakub Beg, who led the Hui Rebellion from 1864 to 1878;
Yue'erbas Khan, the former king of Hami;
Jin Shuren, the chairman who was later expelled from Xinjiang by his White Russian army and executed in Nanjing;
Sheng Shicai, the Manchu general who became a legendary figure after Jin;
Ma Zhongying, the Han Muslim general who once dreamed of establishing an Islamic empire in Central Asia and later followed the Soviet consul Konstantinov across the Soviet border in 1934 to Kashgar. Etc.
Materials recording the Hui Rebellion from 1931 to 1934, such as Shi Wenhai Ding's The Great March and Wu Aijin's The Hui Uprising, are included in this book. This book only narrates part of this rebellion in 1933.
Author Bio: Lin Yutang (1895.10.3-1976.3.26) was a native of Longxi, Fujian. His original name was Hele, later changed to Yutang, and then to Yutang. In 1912, he entered Shanghai Saint John's University and taught at Tsinghua University after graduation. In the autumn of 1919, he went to the United States to study at Harvard University's Department of Literature. In 1922, he obtained a master's degree in literature. That same year, he transferred to the University of Leipzig in Germany to specialize in linguistics. After receiving his doctorate in 1923, he returned to China and served as a professor at Peking University, the director of the teaching affairs at Beijing Normal Women's Normal School, and the head of the English Department. From 1924 onwards, he became one of the main contributors to Yusi. In 1926, he became the head of the College of Liberal Arts at Xiamen University. In 1927, he served as a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1932, he edited the bimonthly Lunyu. In 1934, he founded Renjanshe and in 1935 founded Yuzhifeng, advocating the "self-centered and leisurely style" of short essays. After 1935, he wrote cultural works and novels such as My Country and My People, Beijing Smog, and The Sound of the Wind and the Crows in English while in the United States. In 1944, he once returned to China to lecture in Chongqing. In 1945, he went to Singapore to establish Nanyang University and served as its president. In 1952, he co-founded Tianfeng magazine with others in the United States. In 1966, he settled in Taiwan. In 1967, he was appointed as a research professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1975, he was elected as the vice president of the International P.E.N. Club. In 1976, he passed away in Hong Kong.
The author of this book combines The Red Gate, Beijing Smog, and The Sound of the Wind and the Crows into a "Lin Yutang Trilogy" because they share an intrinsic spiritual connection and embody the author's cultural and life ideals. In this book, the author adopts a straightforward narrative structure, with the love story of Du Ruo'an, a female student at a normal school, and Li Fei, a reporter from Shanghai's Xinbao in Xi'an, as the main thread. Set against the social background of northwest China in the early 1930s, the novel portrays the conflict between good and evil and the struggle between justice and injustice. The plot is full of twists and turns, making it highly readable.